Memorial Day

Dear Linda:

       I’ve been asked to give the eulogy for a soldier. The service will be held on Memorial Day—a holiday I think we’ve generally forgotten the meaning of. I want to honor this man and the special day as well, but I don’t know where to begin.

A Patriot

Dear Patriot:

       Once a sacred day with solemn speeches, patriotic parades, and grateful citizens who decorated the graves of fallen heroes with flags and flowers, Memorial Day’s special meaning has been obscured by the frivolity of picnics, fireworks, department store sales, and the celebration of summer’s bloom.

       Originally called Decoration Day, the commemoration began in 1866 to honor soldiers who lost their lives during the Civil War. Evolving over the next 100 years, the holiday (declared National by Congress in 1971) now honors those who died defending our country in all wars. Flags fly on every grave at Arlington National Cemetery, a wreath is laid on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and the President mourns the loss of brave Americans.

       Memorial services for individual servicemen and women are highly personal and vary in style depending on the family’s preferences, budget, and religious beliefs. Ask the family what else is on the program, how much time you’ll have to speak, and whether the group size attending will be large or intimate. All these variables will impact the formality and length of your speech.

       Read How to Write and Deliver A Loving Eulogy by Leo Seguin and What Shall I Say?: How to Write Eulogies by Celeste Walters. Visit www.eulogy.com and www.funeralplan.com for information and resources. Contact No Greater Love (202-783-4665) an organization commissioned by Congress to honor Memorial Day and provide programs of remembrance for families who have lost a loved one in the service.

       Include in your eulogy your desire to honor your soldier and all Americans who have paid the ultimate price to ensure our freedoms. Mention that their deaths will not be in vain so long as others remember the magnitude of their sacrifice and are truly grateful.

Support Your Local Meals on Wheels

       We have just had a first round of deadly tornadoes in Texas. Six were killed and others are still missing in a quaint town called Granbury south of Fort Worth. I spoke to a good friend who lives there and was relieved to find she was not hit or hurt and was just that day delivering food to the needy through Meals on Wheels, an even more critical service during disasters.

       This life sustaining program gives aid to those who cannot cook for themselves, including those who are financially challenged, mentally ill or physically incapable, and our senior citizens are particularly vulnerable.

        Each day in America, senior citizens, in the hundreds of thousands, go hungry or are severely malnourished. Vulnerable to disease, disability, and escalating costs, seniors on fixed incomes often choose between buying food and medicine. Some are no longer physically able to shop and cook, and others live in remote areas with no help possible.

       The Meals on Wheels Association of America (MOWAA) is a nationally networked program dedicated to helping men and women who are elderly, frail, disabled or housebound. The oldest and largest organization of its kind, it provides meals and nutritional services, and enhances lives by offering social and economic services.

       Under the direction of case managers, an army of caring and cheerful volunteers delivers nutritious meals to the homebound and reports any problems. Just as important, however, they offer the only human contact some of the participants ever have.

       Eligibility varies greatly, so it’s crucial to call your local program. Generally, consideration is given to those who have low-incomes, are in jeopardy of losing independence or reside in rural areas, but many programs consider only whether a person is homebound, unable to prepare a nutritious meal, and has no one else to do so.

       Dieticians tailor meals as necessary—diabetic, low sodium or fat, lactose free, and pureed. Religious/ethnic considerations are made and additional supplements are available. There are no mandatory costs and no one is denied service because of inability to pay, but contributions are encouraged.

          For general information, call Eldercare Locator at 800-677-1116, visit the national organization at www.mowaa.org, or call 817-336-0912 to arrange local services, volunteer, and make donations.

Mothers Matter

Mother's Day always brings to mind my mother who passed away almost nine years ago and my grandmother who died at age 87 twenty years ago. They were very different from each other.

For as long as I can remember, my grandmother was white haired, sweet and loveable. As  the only grandchild to spend the first year of life in her care while my parents both worked to save for their first home, I enjoyed a special relationship with her and even a special place in her heart (though she wouldn't admit it to the other grandchildren). When my parents moved out, I'm quite sure my little psyche felt I was really being taken from my mom because she and I were so bonded, so I went to back to visit as much as was humanly possible.

That must have been difficult for my mom to know I preferred being with grandmom, but mom was tough, critical and had high expectations, and it was just more fun at my grandparents who doted on me and loved, without qualification, everything I uttered and did. The privilege of being a grandparent--spoil (though I prefer the word dote) and send home to mom to do the hard work of rearing and raising, which she did as best she could. Ceilinged by her education, experience and resources, she raised three girls to be hard working, highly responsible, and extremely successful in their chosen endeavors. So thank you again, Mom, for doing your best in a hard job.

And hard job it is, starting with labor. I gave birth naturally to 9.4 and 9.6 babies (small toddlers really) when they finally joined the world. I nursed each for a year, and as the quintessential earth mother, made all their baby food from scratch, washed diapers instead of buying pampers, and used psychology and well thought plans for discipline and education. I scrutinized every mile stone and created the opportunities for maximum learning and development.

I cried when they got sick or their playmates were mean. I felt their pain when they were left out or  didn't reach one of their goals. I was elated and proud each time they succeeded, and I felt their joy as keenly as if it were my own. My children were my creation, my job and my heart, so letting go when it was time was tough.

What are the thanks for sacrificing our time, our bodies and our lives? Some of us are lucky to have our children close by--marrying, giving birth to our grandchildren--sharing life one generation with the next.

Some of us are not so lucky. Our children move so we can't interrelate, or choose dangerous occupations so we worry, or pass away and leave a hole in our heart. A friend just lost her son unexpectedly to an aneurysm--too young, too soon. Mothers shouldn't have to bury their children. It's too great a pain. My grandmother never recovered from having to bury her youngest child.

Some children grow up and discard their mothers. I met lots of them in the hospitals and rehab. centers when I was caring for my aging parents. The children blame their mothers for their unsuccessful or unhappy lives and leave them to age sad and alone. I have a friend who is struggling emotionally because her son has stopped speaking and visiting.

My advice to her and any mom struggling with the "could haves and should haves" is to know that you have been the best mother you could be. Most of us pour our hearts and souls into the little beings we give birth to and raise. In the end, we cannot take all the responsibility for who they become. They are also the product of their DNA, their God given disposition and their own choices. We launch them, yes, and give them the navigational tools, but they decide their destination and the wheel turns along the way. At some point, we can only pray they land safely.

So, Moms, celebrate tomorrow. Celebrate your memories. Celebrate your successes and even celebrate your struggles because raising children is truly the greatest endeavor in life. It is the only one that forces us to create a safe world for another human being, teaches us how to be completely unselfish, and allows us to find contentment in chaos and joy in the little moments.

Hopefully, you have children who know honoring you should not be relegated to just one day a year, but, if not, know you've earned the right to be honored for all your sacrifices, all your heart ache and all the investments you have made in them.

Happy Mother's Day to you all!

Creating Constructive Thinking

 I thought this was an excellent article by Dr. Leaf athttp://drleaf.com/thought_life.php. Visit the site for more informative articles.

 

Thought Life

87% to 95% of the illnesses that plague us today are a direct result of our thought life. What we think about affects us physically and emotionally. It's an epidemic of toxic emotions.
The average person has over 30,000 thoughts a day. Through an uncontrolled thought life, we create the conditions for illness; we make ourselves sick! Research shows that fear, all on its own, triggers more than 1,400 known physical and chemical responses and activates more than 30 different hormones. There are INTELLECTUAL and MEDICAL reasons to FORGIVE! Toxic waste generated by toxic thoughts causes the following illnesses: diabetes, cancer, asthma, skin problems and allergies to name just a few. Consciously control your thought life and start to detox your brain!
Medical research increasingly points to the fact that thinking and consciously controlling your thought life is one of the best ways, if not the best way of detoxing your brain. It allows you to get rid of those toxic thoughts and emotions that can consume and control your mind.
Change in your thinking is essential to detox the brain. Consciously controlling your thought life means not letting thoughts rampage through your mind. It means learning to engage interactively with every single thought that you have, and to analyse it before you decide either to accept or reject it.
How do you go about doing that? By "looking" at your mental processes. That may sound like a strange, if not impossible thing to do. After all, it's not as if you can just crack open your skull like an egg and have a look at what is going on inside your brain.
It is possible, however, to look at your mental processes. In fact, it is not just possible, it is essential.
For example consider the following:

• How many "could-have", "would-have", "should-have" statements have you made today?
• How many "if onlys" were part of your inner vocabulary today?
• How many times have you replayed in your head a conversation or situation that pained you, or one that hasn't even occurred yet?
• How many scenarios have you created of the unpredictable future?
• How much is speculation taking out of your day?
• How passive is your mind?
• How honest are you with yourself?
• Are you at cross-purposes with yourself - going through the motions, but not really committed to the goal, saying one thing but meaning another?
• How distorted is your thinking? Are you forming a personal identity around for example, a disease? Do you speak about "my arthritis", "my multiple sclerosis", "my heart problem"?
• Do you ever make comments like "nothing ever goes right for me"; "everything I touch fails"; "I always mess up"?

If you answered yes even to just one of these, your thought life needs detoxing right now.
A potential pitfall on the path towards detoxing your brain is the fact that toxic thoughts come in many guises. On the surface, a thought like "I must do well" seems positive enough. It is only when you look at it closely, and check out the feelings it generates and their effects on your body and mind, that you will be able to judge fairly and squarely if this is a thought that serves you well.
If you base your thought life on assumptions like the above the foundations will be shaky and the edifice (your body mind) that you create thereafter will be highly unstable. As you think more toxic thoughts and generate more toxic emotions, that edifice will show cracks, cave in and eventually collapse altogether as burgeoning illness and disease takes hold.
Right off, you need to ditch unrealistic thinking and keep in mind some key principles to kick-start the process of controlling toxic thoughts:
Thoughts create your moods
When you experience a fear-based emotion you will feel depressed and your thoughts will be characterised by negativity
A negative thought linked to emotional turmoil will be distorted
"...bringing all thoughts into captivity to Christ Jesus" (2 Corinthians 10:5) becomes the golden rule of safe thinking

The process of "bringing all thoughts into captivity"

There are four simple techniques involved:

1. Understanding that thoughts are real and have an actual anatomy
   Thoughts are real things: they have a structure in your brain and occupy space. Thoughts are the same as memories. Thoughts and memories look like trees and are called neurons or nerve cells. You build a double memory of everything as a mirror image of each other. This means that the memory on the left side of the brain builds from the detail to the big picture; and the memory on the right side builds from the big picture to the detail. When you put these two perspectives of thought together, you get intelligent understanding taking place. As information comes in from the five senses, you process it in certain structures of your brain, then you grow branches on the "trees" to hold this information in long term memory. In fact, as you reading this, you are growing thoughts, because, thoughts are the result of what we hear and read and see and feel and experience. This means that whatever you grow is part of you, actual branches in your brain that create your attitude and influence your decisions.
2. Increasing conscious awareness of your thoughts and how you are feeling.
   Knowledge of the anatomy of thought naturally leads into the process of actively analysing incoming information and thoughts constantly. You should never let a thought or thoughts roam chaotically and unchecked through your head. Examine every thought you have and ask yourself: is this good for me? Is it from God or the devil or my own confused thinking? Conscious awareness of your thinking should become like a habit. A habit takes twenty-one days to create. Today is the first day of that twenty-one...
3. Doing something once you have analysed the thought.
   So, whilst technique two is developing a conscious awareness of what you are thinking about. Now technique three is doing something about the thought. This means making a conscious decision to actively accept the thought (if it is good for you) or reject it (if it is bad for you). This means you use your God-given ability of free will (this also has actual structural position in the brain) to do something about the thought you are consciously aware of. Thoughts have as much control as we give them.
4. Building new memories over the old.
   This is the really exciting part in dealing with our thought life because, accepting or rejecting the thought is changing the neural circuitry of your brain: you brain is growing while you think and you have control over the process. Technique four happens when the brain steps in and creates a structural representation of what you have chosen to accept (adds more branches on the tree) and converts what you have chosen to reject into hot air!
   • Lets see how these four techniques work if you have an unforgiveness in your memory trees towards someone:
   • Technique one: this unforgiveness looks like a thorn tree and will hurt you - visualize the twisted bitter thorn tree.
   • Technique two: be consciously aware of this thought of unforgiveness - where it comes from, how long it has been there, and so on.
   • Technique three: ask the Holy Spirit to help you use your free will to make the wisdom decision to reject unforgiveness and forgive. Picture the unforgiveness disappearing as hot air.
   • Technique four: now build a new de-thorned memory to replace the thorny unforgiveness with for example, quoting scriptures, singing a worship song, praying for the person, and so on.